The Great Giveaway 2

He then goes on to make the suggestion that we use qualitative measure of community instead of evaluating a church by the quality of preaching, the worship services, the convenience of children’s care services, etc.:

“When was the last time someone spoke a hard truth into your life? Was it done with love?
When was the last time you confessed sin to someone you felt safe with in this community?
When was the last time you prayed with someone over an issue of needs or discernment in this body?
When was the last someone in the body visited you in the hospital or brought you a meal when you were sick?
When was the last time a homeless person was brought into the congregation and made whole?

And ultimately he suggests that we measure the number of new church plants, not the size of church buildings. Listen to this:

“Why is it that pastors of large churches are more willing to build bigger buildings than empower a group of forty to fifty people to plant another living body of Christ? If indeed the facts are true that the greatest conversion growth occurs in churches when they grow from fifty to two hundred people, why is it that we insist on building bigger churches after they have reached one thousand? What does it say about our assumptions for church growth when we plant churches that already start with two hundred people? If this is what it means to be the physical body of Christ in North America then the ultimate sign of church success will be “the number of churches you have planted,” not how big your church is in terms of attendance, decisions, or church facilities.”